HOLLI MET THE METAL GODS PART I

By Rudolph T. Rave

This is the place where you can read short-stories spiced up with many unpublished pictures and illustrations from holli's fanzine reporter life. His stories from back in the day featuring all the stars and aspiring little stars of the heavy metal scene in the early 90's will make you feel like being captured in a time-warp, where facebook, youtube, and most important: the internet, were nonexistent, the were swimming around in daddie's nutsack!!!

Holli had em all in front of his lens: MOTÖRHEAD, MEGADETH, GAMMA RAY, VENOM and countless others.

Shrivel in agony when you read his adventures of saving blood-cans or how he almost tasted the iron fist of MOTÖRHEAD.

It doesn't matter where you are: either in your rancid mattress at home, or caught in a tent, surrounded by mud at the Wacken Open Air, or any other really creepy experience you will have in your life as a heavy metal fan-this is a must read and your lecture of choice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: Jan 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9783734504693

Book preview

Prologue

My name is Hollister Bluni. For my buddies I’m simply Holli. I worked as a photographer and editor for a few select metal-fanzines in the early 90‘s when Germany was still east and west–coming from the western side. It was always first row for me, struggling a lot. In order to breathe life into these small fanzines, we experienced a lot of things. Not all of them were positive, but the good experiences outweigh the bad ones.

In the here and now, after my career as annoying paparazzi and sleazy writer I need to write down some of those crazy stories. My psychiatrist said this would definitely help me. This would help my burnt soul finding peace at the end of this long and rocky road.

O.K., lets get serious: my psychiatrist as well as my funky sounding name is a mockery of my fantasy.

I only chose this name in order to be safe from the thousands of fans camping at my house, invading my privacy, trying get an autograph or whatever their fantasy is. I am definitely not the latest iPhone release, but then again–you never know! To make it short and sweet, my real name and my colleagues’ names are of no interest for anybody. I hope you have a pleasant read during my voyage into the past and a reconnaissance with many, mostly still active, stars from the world of metal.

Papyrus Metallos

Far, far away, in a time before the emergence of the electronic spider, which spread her web across our globe, there were magazines printed on paper. These days, it seems that this certain way of circulating news is becoming more and more extinct. But at the end of the 70’s and the beginning of the 80’s–exactly this–was the most important, almost stand-alone source for us metal aficionados.

So, if I wanted to get news about those guys who were celebrating metallic shredder orgies, I was always keen on the latest news coming from that scene. Insatiable, as it is buried deep in human’s nature, the thirst for more was always there, the same goes for me of course.

Since heavy metal was regarded more as an active form of revolution in the mainstream media such as tv or radio who both neglected this fine art of music–the only thing remaining were newspapers and propaganda from mouth to mouth. It may sound old-fashioned, but this strenuous gathering of information is considered by me as way more interesting than today’s overload. These days you don’t discover bands anymore, they get served on a daily base. You can’t approach your buddy with amazing, ear-splitting, and violent metal-news anymore, he is already in the know thanks to big brother.

The big music-magazines from that time way back then only showed the polished-up versions of the industry in their releases. Something had to be done ASAP, so the resistance against the loud soup oozing from the outside could grow. Money for a radio-station? Nope. Money for your own tv-station? Nope again. Maybe money for your own publishing-company? Nope again…for the third time.

In many parts of the world, the first mags of the well-known Rock Hard magazine spawned out of a copy machine. And the only thing these guys were asking for, far away from the demands of the industry, was; SUPPORT THE UNDERGROUND.

The publishers main interest was to feature the band they really liked or were absolutely interested in. Created by fans for fans. Honest to the bone–the way it should be–and independent, as much as possible. As with anything which is really cool the community of metalheads was a vast growing one. The fan-mags, short form is fanzines, were increasing in size! Bigger companies got attracted by this underground movement and suddenly showed interest where neglect was a daily routine before. So was the independence in grave danger?

Yes, of course. Some mags made it this way, selling out a bit more and more, into the colorful world of high gloss magazines and huge print runs, don’t take this too negative, by the way. Once you got cash flowing from the bigger companies, there is always that certain danger of dependency. It always was and shall remain a